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The Drunken Odyssey

Tag Archives: DC Comics

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #43: The Black Stairs Label

06 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart

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DC Black Label, DC Comics, Dungeons and Dragons, high fantasy, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Riccardo Federici, The Last God

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #43 by Drew Barth

The Black Stairs Label

Roughly a year ago, DC introduced their new imprint: DC Black Label. This was their newest excursion into more mature themed books set within the mainline DC Universe separate from their Vertigo imprint.

With Vertigo’s dissolution earlier this year, there was no one location for those mature-rated DC stories outside of the DC Universe. The DC Black Label imprint was created as a new place for those mature DC Universe stories, and with the recent publication of The Last God by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Riccardo Federici, an expansion of the imprint has begun.

lg1

DC has a legacy of fantasy series such as Camelot 3000, Demon Knights, and Books of Magic, but The Last God is a foray into high fantasy—complete with gods, god-slayers, and a history so vast and intricate that many characters in the series see it as mythology. The series itself centers on Cain Anuun, a plague from the dark gods that devastated the land, and the band of adventurers who fought the gods and saved the lands for all eternity.

lg2

Of course, that’s mostly a big lie.

Like many of the best recent fantasy series in comics, The Last God is predicated on characters taking credit for heroic acts they had little to nothing to do with—even more interesting when they build that lie into their own power. This is what Johnson and Federici focus this first issue on. Not only did the god-slayer lie about slaying the great, evil god, he became that evil god and is beginning to spread that once vanquished plague. It reads like a perfectly-plotted D&D campaign where one of the players at the table ultimately is revealed to have been the villain the whole time.

That relationship to gaming tropes is part of the fun of many of these more recent fantasy series. The Last God, while not straying too far from the fantasy we know, still brings in new bits of world-building and character archetypes that make the series feel like the best campaign you haven’t played yet.

lg3

One of the main things that makes The Last God so interesting is that it isn’t a DC story, for now. As part of DC’s Black Label imprint that has been exclusively centered on many of the biggest DC characters, it’s hard to look at The Last God without trying to see where the rest of the DC Universe could potentially fit into it. Could Vandal Savage be waiting around the next rock? Will the camera pull back to reveal the devastated earth of Kamandi? Or perhaps this will be the final origin story of the Phantom Stranger? With twelve more issues to come, it’s impossible to tell where the rest of the story could go, but based on this first issue, it’s going to be interesting regardless.

Get excited. There’s always more.


drew barthDrew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Episode 319: Julian Chambliss!

16 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Episode, History

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Black Lightning, Cress Williams, DC Comics, Julian Chambliss, Krondon, Metropolis, Suicide Slum, Superman, Tobias Whale, Tony Isabella

Episode 319 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s program, Julian Chambliss returns to the secret headquarters of TDO so we could share notes about the first season of the new television show of Black Lightning, and consider the context of the classic comic book from the 1970s.

Science Night Live, photo by Roberto Gonzalez

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Black Lightning

Black Lightning Cover.png

NOTES

Check out this hysterical assist from Superman!

Black Lightning & Superman

Compare Tobias Whale on the CW show (Marvin ‘Krondon’ Jones III) and his considerably different look in the original comics.

Black-Lightning-Tobias-Whale-feature-2Black Lightning Tobias Whale comics


Episode 319 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 145: Patrick Hawkins!

28 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Episode

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Tags

Alan Moore, Come Get Sum, DC Comics, Frank Miller, Incredible Hulk #182, Marvel Comics, Patrick Hawkins, The Dark Knight Returns, The Geeks of Comedy, Walt Simonson

Episode 145 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I engage in an epic, manic conversation about the creative appeal and history of comic books and superhero storytelling with Patrick Hawkins.

10403566_10205272360302460_1480408357168425309_nTEXTS DISCUSSED

the-dark-knight-returnsSaga of the Swamp Thing OneThorAppleseed - Book 1 - CoverJohn Sable

Four important panels that John came across early in his reading life:

H182_HammerAnvilfrom The Incredible Hulk #182.

Hulk 182NOTES

Patty Hawkins is a geek theorist & humorist which is politer and more marketable than calling himself a fatuous gasbag who has seen & read far too much media involving capes, swords & ray guns. He makes no claims other then speaking the truth as he sees it about geek culture without sucking up or snarking down.

Sometimes he succeeds.

He is the producer & host of Come Get ∑ [pronounced ‘come get sum’] a new TV/webcast set to debut in 2015 focusing on geekdom as a social culture instead of an exploited clichéd demographic of basement dwellers & cosplayers.

He is one of the founding members & manager of The Geeks Of Comedy, a touring confederation of geek comedians who hack into all facets of fandom & fanDUMB with blistering honesty & self-effacement instead of lame ass Aquaman jokes.

He is also Patrick The Uneducated Critic and reviews films at his own caprice when they roll over on his Netflix queue (YES I’m one of the weirdoes that still pays to get the damn discs mailed to me).

He is a contributing panelist on the MarkWho42WHOniverse, a Dr. Who discussion podcast that bridges the generational gaps between Whovians which is not as easy as it sounds…

In his day jobs his is co-owner of TyFy Studios, an audio production facility, an Ideator at Ideas To Go, & is an Equity actor for Walt Disney World.

Go back and listen to Patrick perform some geek comedy as part of The Drunken Odyssey’s Nerd Love live show back on episode 47.

_______

Episode 145 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

 

Heroes Never Rust #31: Red Son 1

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust

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Dave Johnson, DC Comics, Elseworlds, Heroes Never Rust, Mark Millar, sean ironman, Superman, Superman: Red Son

Heroes Never Rust #31 by Sean Ironman

Red Son 1

I’m going to try something different over the next few weeks. I’m going to study one issue per week for a storyline. Perhaps some people may read along. Over the next three weeks, I will take a look at the three-issue miniseries Superman: Red Son.

DC Comics produces an imprint called Elseworlds, where the characters readers know are taken out of their usual context and placed into different times or situations. It allows writers and readers to explore the characters in different ways without being confined by continuity. In Superman: Red Son. Mark Millar and Dave Johnson take a look at Superman by asking, “What if his spaceship landed in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas?” One of my interests in writing is the exploration of what makes us us. What made Superman a good person—his Kryptonian birth or Ma and Pa Kent in Smallville?

Untitled 3

The first issue opens in Metropolis with Superman’s thoughts presented to the reader in red and yellow captions. “In the middle of the twentieth century, the telephones started ringing all across America as rumors of my existence started circulating.” Millar places us in a city most readers know with a character’s voice we know. But the end of the first page has thrown the reader thrown for a loop. Lois Lane answers the telephone and corrects her name as “Lois Luthor.” President Dwight D. Eisenhower goes on television to tell the United States of Superman’s existence. At the same time, the president attempts to comfort the country over the fact that Superman is more of a threat than a nuclear bomb. Instead of Superman offering the world hope, he has become a sign of fear for everyone outside of the Soviet Union and its allies. Right away the reader is given something familiar and something new, something to keep the reader grounded and something to propel the reader to the next page.

Untitled 1

The most interesting aspect, for me, of Superman: Red Son is the treatment of Lex Luthor, who is granted the status of America’s last hope in defeating Superman. Luthor is the world’s smartest man, always has been, even in the normal continuity. The tragedy of Luthor’s character in the Superman comics is that he could have done so much for the world, nothing was in his way, but he let his hatred and jealousy of Superman get in the way and he became a criminal instead of a savior. Now that Superman is America’s enemy, Luthor is free to do both—fight and try to kill Superman at the same time as saving the country. In a way, the comic comments on the Cold War, or even war in general. The same things Luthor does would make him a criminal normally, but because he’s doing them against another country it’s not only okay, it’s worshipped.

Untitled 2

At the end of issue one, Luthor creates Bizarro Superman, one of my favorites. He’s called Superman Two here. In trying to defeat Superman, Luthor creates a monster who causes more damage. One must keep in mind that until this point in the comic, Superman never fights against America. In fact, he saves lives in America when Sputnik Two comes crashing down to Earth. The thought comes to me now that America is quite the villain in Superman: Red Son, a comic released by a corporate-owned American comic book company. While the comic book storyline uses fictional conceits in Superman and clones, it keeps coming back to being about war. When the newest technologies to destroy Superman fail, Luthor, and America, attempt to create more.

Superman Two fails and Luthor calls off his marriage to Lois in order to focus his life on destroying Superman, who still hasn’t done anything against the United States. Luthor’s story in this issue ends with him turning full-on villain and killing his lab technicians. He loses track of everything else he wants to do in life and leaves his wife in order to go to war. The war against Superman, against the idea of Superman, draws resources and lives away from the betterment of society. War is the focus. War over nothing. War over fear of something different.

___________

Sean Ironman

Sean Ironman is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as Managing Editor of The Florida Review and as President of the Graduate Writers’ Association. His art has appeared online at River Teeth. His writing can be read in Breakers: An Anthology of Comics and Redivider.

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